andyfrench.info

The Problem

Here's a quick note to help if you have issues installing the Windows Subsystem for Linux, specifically the following error:

"WslRegisterDistribution failed with error: 0xc03a001a"

I was trying to install Ubuntu 20.04 LTS on Windows 10 Home (10.0.18363) following the instructions found here:

• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-win10

The Solution

There are several posts out there that can help:

• https://utf9k.net/blog/wsl2-vhd-issue/
• https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/4299

For me the solution was simple, I navigated to the %LOCALAPPDATA%/packages/ folder and located the Ubuntu distribution package.

Figure 1 - Locate the package

Right-click on the package and select General > Advanced. Uncheck "Compress contents to save disk space".

Figure 2 - Uncheck "Compress contents to save disk space"

Now relaunch the Linux distribution from the store. Everything should now work.

I was having issues with getting CrashPlan to backup to network storage (a Western Digital MyBookLive). In short, the drive was not always mapped. I fixed it using advice given in this article:

https://support.code42.com/CrashPlan/4/Backup/Back_up_files_from_a_Windows_network_drive

The batch file looked like this:

net use Z: /DELETE
net use Z: "\\192.168.0.13\Andy" "password here" /USER:"username here" >>E:\mount_drive_for_crashplan.log

And I created a scheduled task to run it as instructed in the article.

Customer service? I think not

Final update (26/12/16 16:30): Following a Tweet from me Amazon’s Social Media Team got in touch and resolved the issue, finally. Well done them and thanks to the lady who sorted it out for me. Case closed. I’ve left the blog post below for information.

My son received 2 gift cards from a good friend of our this Christmas. Both the cards were purchased at the same time direct from Amazon and were delivered direct to us. Both cards arrived at the same time in the same package. No 3rd party retailers were involved.

My son was able to redeem the first card but the second one – with a value of £20 - simply wouldn’t work.

So, I contact Amazon customer services using their online email facility but the results are shockingly poor and have left me feeling like I’m being taken for a ride.

So far they have strung me along with an exchange of 11 emails and one long phone call. I’ve included the whole thing below because of it’s absurdity. In short they start by saying the card was not authorised by the ‘retailer’ and that I should contact them. I point out Amazon was the retailer – no 3rd parties involved. They respond by asking for a PDF of the card which I send. They then ask me to provide the following gem of information:

“If you're able to see the any 3 consecutive digits of the claim code, other than the first 2 or last 4, please reply to this e-mail with these numbers along with the 16 digit card number located on the back of the card.”

Remember, I’d just send them a PDF of the whole card. You have to assume I’m being strung along at this point.

To rub salt in my wounds Amazon includes the following message at the bottom of each email:

“Your feedback is helping us build Earth's Most Customer-Centric Company.”

That starts to look like a bit of a joke. Anyway, so far no I’ve not been able to resolve the issue. To cut a long story short, Amazon has taken money from a friend of mine and provided nothing in return. What a great way to make money!

The whole email trail follows if you are interested (I’ve omitted the card number for obvious reasons).

The email trail

25/12/16 13:25:20 from me

A gift card given to my son does not work. It's for £20 and has number ****-******-*****. Please advise.

25/12/16 15:34 from Amazon Customer Services

Hello,

I'm sorry to hear you've had trouble using the Gift Card you received for your son and I’ll be happy to help you today.

I’ve checked your account, and can see that according to our records the Gift Card wasn't activated by the retailer it was purchased from.

Unfortunately, we can't activate this Gift Card for you as it was not created on our system.

The best action to take in this situation is to bring the Gift Card back to the point of purchase with your receipt, where the retailer can reissue a new card for you to use. If you no longer have the receipt, please contact the shop where the card was purchased to resolve this.

Your patience and understanding is greatly appreciated.​

If you need any further information or assistance, please let us know by replying to this e-mail so that we'll be happy to help you further.
We look forward to seeing you again soon.

25/12/16 17:43 from me

Sorry, but I think you are mistaken.

Two gift cards arrived at the same time and were purchased by a friend direct from amazon.co.uk, not a 3rd party. The 2 cards arrived in the same package and came direct from you. One card worked, the second did not. I believe the mistake is at your end.

Andrew French

25/12/16 18:12 from Amazon Customer Services

Hello,

I'm sorry to hear that you were unable to use one of your Gift Cards.

We will be happy to take the necessary action.

If you have received the Physical Gift card, I request you to attach the picture of the front and back side of Gift Card.

Please attach the picture as a PDF, JPG or PNG file.

If you have received the Email Gift card, I request you to just copy and past the entire gift card information, and send it to us.

I am sorry in making you to write back to us, but this will help us in resolving this issue for you in an efficient manner.

Thank you for you patience and understanding in this regard.

We look forward to seeing you again soon.​​​​​​​​​

25/12/16 19:08 from me

Please find the PDF attached as requested.
[I attached the PDF to the email]

25/12/16 20:54 from Amazon Customer Services

Hello Andy,

Firstly, please accept my sincere apologies for any inconvenience caused by this situation.

I understand the level of disappointment this has caused to you. If I had been in this situation, I would have felt the same.​

You have been a loyal and supportive customer with us since a long time, I highly appreciate your support with us.​​​

It's never our intention to cause inconvenience to our honest and valuable customer like you.​

Further to your email, I understand that the 2 Gift card were purchased by your friend but one Gift card is working another one is not working.

In this situation to help you further, I have checked  your friend account omitted@omitted.co.uk  and see that he/she purchased only one gift card from our direct store and the order number for the one is #***-*******-*******.

I have checked the image you have provided to us and can see that according to our records the Gift Card wasn't activated by the retailer it was purchased from.
Unfortunately, we can't activate this Gift Card for you as it was not created on our system.

The best action to take in this situation is to bring the Gift Card back to the point of purchase with your receipt, where the retailer can reissue a new card for you to use. If you no longer have the receipt, please contact the shop where the card was purchased to resolve this.

Should you require a​ny additional information or assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us.​

Once again, please let me apologies for any inconvenience this has caused. It is never our intention to cause any sort on inconvenience to our valued customers like you.​​

We look forward to seeing you again soon.

25/12/16 21/31 from me

No, you have misunderstood again.

The account you reference (omitted@omitted.co.uk) is not the purchaser of the gift cards but the recipient! The card you site as having been ‘purchased’ was not purchased at all but was redeemed. It is the one card that did work (as per email trail below). The card we are talking about here did not work.

I have not given you the purchaser’s account name because I do not have it.
What I can say with a certainty is that both cards were purchased at the same time. They both arrived together in the same package direct from Amazon, not a 3rd party. THERE IS NO 3RD PARTY RETAILER TO CONTACT. AMAZON WAS THE RETAILER OF BOTH CARDS.

I suggest you credit my son’s account (omitted@omitted.co.uk), the intended recipient of the card, with the £20 value and cancel the card itself. You can then take whatever steps are necessary to sort out the confusion at your end.

If you are unable to resolve this matter – which is of your making – please provide details of how I may make a formal complaint. At this point Amazon have taken £20 for nothing in return.

25/12/16 23:02 from Amazon Customer Services

Hello Andy,

I'm sorry you weren't able to redeem the Gift Card to your account.

Please accept my sincere apologies for any inconvenience caused by this.

If you're able to see the any 3 consecutive digits of the claim code, other than the first 2 or last 4, please reply to this e-mail with these numbers along with the 16 digit card number located on the back of the card.

If you're not able to provide 3 consecutive digits, please reply to this e-mail with the serial number and attach a scanned copy of the card as a PDF, JPG or PNG file.
Please reply to this e-mail with the serial number located on the back of the card and attach a scanned copy of the card as a PDF, JPG or PNG file.

Once received, we'll attempt to validate the card and claim it to the account associated with this e-mail address.

As a representative of Amazon.co.uk, I want to assure you that as our valued customer, your satisfaction is our top priority and be assured that your future order would better reflect our commitment to your satisfaction.​

I highly appreciate your patience, cooperation and understanding in this matter.​
If you need any further information or assistance, please let us know by replying to this e-mail so that we'll be happy to help you further.

We value your business with us and we are looking forward to serve you more in the future.​​​​​​​

25/12/16 23:50 from me

This is a disgrace. Just look how long this email trail is. You are asking for information ALREADY SUPPLIED.

I have ALREADY SENT YOU A PDF of the card which includes the full serial number so why you are asking for that is beyond me. Anyway, I have reattached the PDF. The serial number is ****************, but you can see that in the PDF anyway.

And of course I can see the claim code. We have been trying to enter it into your system to redeem the card. I am pretty sure you are making unreasonable requests now simply to string me along without you actually doing anything. Anyway, in answer to your question about the claim code here are 3 consecutive digits other than the first 2 or last 4: ***. You can check them against the attached PDF if you’ve got nothing better to do. They appear after the first hyphen in the claim code.

And as a reminder, there is no 3^rd party retailer. Amazon sold the card.  

Do not reply to me asking for any further information. YOU HAVE IT ALL. Credit my son’s account (omitted@omitted.co.uk) with the monies owed (£20) immediately.

26/12/16 04:45 from Amazon Customer Services

Hello,

I'm sorry to learn about the issue you experienced in relation to the Gift Card. I've reviewed our previous correspondence with you.

The information provided in our last message correctly represents our policy at this time.

As my colleague previously mentioned, I’ve checked your account, and can see that according to our records the Gift Card wasn't activated by the retailer it was purchased from.

Unfortunately, we can't activate this Gift Card for you as it was not created on our system.

The best action to take in this situation is to bring the Gift Card back to the point of purchase with your receipt, where the retailer can reissue a new card for you to use. If you no longer have the receipt, please contact the shop where the card was purchased to resolve this.

Your patience and understanding is greatly appreciated.​

If you still face any issue then I kindly ask you to get in touch via phone. This way, you can speak to our live customer support team who can ensure we resolve this concern to your satisfaction. I'm sorry we don't share account and order information through email address due to security reasons.

I realise that, at this point, asking you to contact us again would be disappointing; however, we really feel that the best way to assist you with this concern is over the phone.

We're available 7 days a week 06.00 to midnight, local UK time. Freephone (within the UK): 0800 496 1081 International customers can reach us at +44 (0) 207 084 7911.

Amazon cares about our customers, and we're working to improve our service and selection.

Your patience and understanding is highly appreciated in this matter.
I hope this helps. We look forward to seeing you again soon.

26/12/16 10:31 from me

Why don’t any of you read the previous emails?

As I said many times, AMAZON IS THE RETAILER.

Anyway, you can read all about it here: http://www.andyfrench.info/2016/12/amazon-gift-cards-how-amazon-can-take.html

Pay the money you owe.

26/12/16 13:30 No email this time – phoned Amazon customer support

I called Amazon Customer Support but they refused to deal with me even though I tried explaining that my son was only 16. They insisted on talking to him direct. Frankly, that’s outrageous.

Anyway, a long call ensued with my son having to read all the numbers on the card several times to the customer services representative and answering many questions.

The outcome? Contact the person who bought the card and ask them to contact Amazon, despite the fact that I told them he’s out of the country on an extended holiday.

Fobbed off again.

26/12/16 16:30 Contacted direct by the Amazon Social Media Team

OK, following a Tweet from me Amazon’s Social Media Team got in touch and sorted the issue out. Success at last and well done the nice Amazon lady who dealt with it. It was nice to talk to someone who could deviate from the script!

We are living the dream. As a family we take full advantage of online retailing but there’s one aspect of the process that seems to be in need of improvement: delivery. 

A company that I’ve had a few unsatisfactory dealings with recently is UKMail. I’ve had disappearing deliveries where either they didn’t try to deliver or – more likely – they did but the driver decided not to leave a card.

Phone system – FAIL

On one such occasion I tried calling by phone and got bounced through the usual impenetrable audio menus until I encountered an option to arrange for a re-delivery. I dutifully pressed 1 as instructed only to be told “Thank you for calling UKMail. Goodbye.” after which I was immediately cut off.

via GIPHY

Happy? No. Really, no.

Contact Us – FAIL

Having tried and failed to use their phone system I decided to raise a complaint using the online Contact Us form. It seems UKMail were ahead of me there and seem to have created a form that you can’t actually submit.

Try as I might I couldn’t identify what the erroneous character was. I suspect there’s a proud customer services manager gleefully including in his weekly report the fact that no one is complaining via the website. Now we know why.

I pointed this out on Twitter but I think they missed the point. The following Tweet did result in contact from customer services but only to try and rearrange delivery of the parcel, which I’d already managed to do.

Delivery notification – FAIL

So today, I get home to find yet another UKMail card lying on the door mat but this time annotated by a clearly irritated UKMail delivery man.

Loving the “Again”. It didn’t irritate the hell out of me at all.

It might be stating the obvious but if you keep trying to deliver at the same times and there’s never anyone in then you might be trying at the wrong times.

But let’s look a bit closer. This card suggests we’ve been notified in advance in order to give us the change to choose “option 1”. So I checked my email and this is what I found.

This email arrived at 09:42hrs on the day of delivery, only 2 hours ahead of the earliest delivery time given.

What do UKMail expect here? Do they expect us all to be monitoring personal email while at work and filling in online forms to arrange delivery at another time? I’m pretty sure my boss wouldn’t be too happy about that.

UKMail, if you insist on sending these emails at least give us a chance to answer them. Two hours isn’t enough notice. And perhaps point this out to your delivery men so they don’t get snippy on your cards.

Sorry we missed you email – FAIL

This one speaks for itself.

Option 1 – FAIL

OK, so the card says quite clearly to visit www.ukmail.com and to select ‘Manage My Delivery’. I did just that, entered the card number and postcode as directed and ended up here.

Can’t see an option 1, 2, 3 or 4 there… Definitely can’t see a “Leave in a safe place option”… Not sure what to do now.

I give up. I think I’ll be looking out for UKMail as a delivery option when making online purchases and selecting something else!

Collect from depot – FAIL

OK, let’s try the Collect from depot option.

Right. No idea what times I can collect then. Not even a default “between 9am and 5pm”. Remember I’m working so what are the chances of them being open after I finish work (i.e. after 5pm)? Nil, I suspect. Do I risk it..?

Well I do as it happens and I end up with this:

They don’t like times at UKMail do they - unless it’s giving you 2 hours notice of a delivery.

Conclusion

As a consumer I very often don’t even know which delivery company will deliver any given online purchase. Even if I do, it’s usually the case that I don’t get the chance to specify delivery options such as ‘leave in a safe place’. That seems like a failing to me.

If you leave instructions on a card make sure those instructions can actually be completed by the customer.

Notifications of impending deliveries 2 hours beforehand is a waste of time where people can be expected to be at work.

And why try to deliver during the day at all? Surely most people are out at that time, at least as far as domestic customers are concerned. Wouldn’t evening deliveries by less wasteful in time and resources, not to mention creating better customer relationships?

Online forms that are difficult to submit will aggravate end users, especially when they are already aggravated. Emails that refer to buttons that aren’t there are plain sloppy.

Any individual item given above wouldn’t mean much but when combined result in reduced customer satisfaction and loss of confidence in the service.

Now, let’s try and rearrange delivery of that parcel…

Update – 13/04/2015

After contacting UKMail via Twitter I received the following message:

So even though I’ve said it’s OK to leave the parcel in a safe place they won’t do it. This illustrates the problem with deliveries and online purchasing. If I as the consumer am not able to specify delivery options like this at the point of sale and if delivery companies won’t allow deliveries outside normal working hours it makes life difficult for all concerned.

It also occurred to me that I hadn’t shown what happens if you try to get your parcel redelivered.

You can’t specify a time of delivery, not even morning or afternoon let alone after 5pm. What are the options here? Only one: take the day off and sit around all day waiting for a delivery. For large or expensive deliveries that might be a viable option but for most of what I do it’s not.

Update – 14/04/2016

As you can see from the screenshots in the Collect from depot – FAIL section above I used the online system to arrange collection from the depot. Imagine my surprise to be sent the following email:

As usual the email arrived just 2 hours before the scheduled delivery time (at 10:03hrs actually). So, UKMail have ignored my instruction that I’d be picking the parcel up from the depot and I can expect another crappy card with some suitably irksome message from an irritated delivery driver waiting for me at home.

Just pathetic.

And will the parcel be waiting for me at the depot? Should I waste my time trying to pick it up as I’d arranged?

Update - 15/04/2016

I don’t know why I bothered but I tried collecting the parcel as previously arranged. No surprises here – the result was a big fat “Sorry mate. Bad news I’m afraid…” from the UKMail man in reception. It seems the parcel was still on the van and wouldn’t be back at the depot until 7pm.

So I had to make another journey to collect the parcel after 7pm taking an hour out of my evening. I have the parcel now but that’s it for me. If an online vendor owns up to using UKMail I’m shopping elsewhere.

I received an email from Google saying that my credit card was expired and asking me add a new one. What ensued was an example of really bad user experience.

Here’s the original email:

There are a few links in the email. Let’s try following the Sign in link. You end up at a web page that looks like this:

Now, I don’t think I’ve got a Google for Work account so let’s click the Add account button. I’m asked for sign-in details so I add my usual Google account details and click through.

I click the final Sign in button and end up here:

Hang on. That looks familiar. No matter how many times I tried, it was always the same. I went round in a circle and ended up in the same place without an account having been ‘added’.

Back to the email. What happens if I click the Add payment methods link? This does, every time:

Wow.

OK, back to first principles. I Google “google for work” and find the http://apps.google.com site. I click Sign in and use the domain I’m administering (this blog) and my usual account details again.

I click Go and end up here:

Hmmm… Looks familiar again but at least we’ve now got a domain mentioned. Can you guess what trying to add an account does? Yes, it does nothing and goes in a circle again.

So, what was the real problem? It seems that because the ‘organisation’ is andyfrench.info I had a separate account in that domain that I had setup to manage the site. I ended up logging in with that account – resetting the password on the way – to get in to the Google at Work admin site. One in it still took me a while to navigate my way to change the credit card details. Whew.

Anyway, it may be secure to not leak any information at all about failed login attempts but really? Is this right?

Problem

When running Zoom on a Lenovo W540 laptop the webcam was not working despite the indicator light being active. In Zoom the webcam icon looked as if it was disabled. The laptop was running Windows 7.

Solution

Close Zoom or any programs that might use the webcam.

Then go to Control Panel > All Control Panel Items. Open “Lenovo – Web Conferencing”.

Click “Show my video image”.

Close the “Lenovo – Web Conferencing” application. The camera should now be working.

Update 03/01/2016 – My issue was resolved by BitDefender (see details at the end of the post).

OK, so I’ve been using Bitdefender again. I should know better I guess after the trouble I had in the past (e.g. Are BitDefender (Avangate/Digital River) behaving like confidence tricksters?, BitDefender and underhanded automatic re-subscription, and more besides).

Now they have taken to spamming me every single day and often more than once a day with this little gem that pops up on my desktop.

There is no way of stopping this pop-up as far as I can see. I have 115 days left on my subscription so am I to expect this to appear every single day until I renew?

Bitdefender, thanks for the offer but now let me decline and stop this goddam thing from hogging my desktop. I will renew when I want to renew which will be at the end of the current license period. At that time you will make an offer of how much it will cost me and I will make my own mind up whether it’s acceptable or not. If not, I will take my business elsewhere.

Make the pop-ups go away!

Update 03/02/106

BitDefender gave me the following instructions via Twitter:

1. Open Bitdefender
2. Click on the human-shaped button, in the upper right corner
3. Click on Settings (General Settings)
4. Remove the check-mark next to "Display special offers and product notifications".

Now I checked the settings before and really can’t remember seeing this option (obviously). Anyway, hopefully this will make the ads go away. I’ll keep you posted if it doesn’t.

I do enjoy a good doodle and I thought I’d show you my latest effort. My doodles can take weeks or even months to complete and they are typically done in the notebook I use for work.

Here’s a picture of the notebook with the original full page doodle.

And here’s a scan of the page before any additional processing.

What I like to do is to use some basic image processing to add a splash of colour. Nothing too fancy - they are only doodles after all - but adding some layers to the image using an appropriate blend mode can have quite an effect.

Here I have added a series of layers using a burn blend mode with a different colour in each layer. By changing the amount of blend mode the subtlety of the effect can be varied.

There’s plenty more where that came from!

I workout a lot - always have and hopefully always will – but one thing I hate is the piped music you get in most gyms. On the other hand I find wired headphones really irritating so the idea of having some wireless Bluetooth earbuds was very appealing. Enter the Jaybird BlueBuds X.

So why the review? Well unfortunately what sounded like a great idea fell down in practice and I thought I’d relate my experience.

If you’re in a rush skip to Quality below. Also see the Updates at the bottom where Jaybird are being a pain giving me a replacement.

Appearance

Fit

There are 2 ways of wearing the BlueBuds X. The first way is the most obvious allowing the cord that connects each earbud to dangle downwards from the ear and to loop the cord around your neck. This really didn’t work for me because the weight of the cord acted to pull the earbuds out as I exercised.

An alternative is to use an over ear placement. When wearing the BlueBuds this way the cord is kept short and the weight of the cord is supported by your ears. This is the way I used them. The one concern I have is that wearing them like this puts the control unit in direct contact with your head which might allow sweat to penetrate and cause damage.

One novel feature of the BlueBuds is the inclusion of flexible ‘Secure Fit Ear Cushions’. These comma shaped attachments lock the earbuds in place inside your ear. I found they worked quite well and provided as secure a fit as you could reasonably expect from earbuds.

Sound quality

I listen to a lot of Rock-based music when I’m in the gym with subgenres ranging from aggressive metal to alternative. I found the sound quality of the BlueBuds X to be really good for this type of music. It’s quite well balanced and doesn’t have that excessive bass response you get from Dr Dre Beats.

As mentioned above I found the fit very good and the ear inserts blocked out a lot of background noise so overall the sound quality was very good.

You can make phone calls with the BlueBuds but this is something I did very infrequently (I was using an iPhone 5S). Standing in the gym apparently talking to yourself isn’t my style but on the few occasions I did use them to make calls I could hear the other party on the call very well but they usually struggled to hear me. I guess the placement of the microphone is too far away from your mouth to be particularly effective.

Even if you don’t use the BlueBuds to make calls it is useful to get the audio notifications for incoming texts etc.

Range

Connecting and Charging

Charging the BlueBuds was easy. All that was required was to connect them to a PC using the included USB cable. One of the earbuds has an indicator light that show red while charging and which turns green when charging is complete.

Connecting them to my iPhone 5S was a doddle. I just switched on the BlueBuds, activated Bluetooth on the phone and they were detected right away.

Quality

OK, this is where it all goes wrong. In 6 months I have gone through 2 pairs of BlueBuds, both failing in exactly the same way.

I experienced occasional uninvited power-offs and loss of audio but these incidents were infrequent and restarting the BlueBuds always fixed the issue. However, eventually I hit another issue with both pairs I have owned, an issue that killed the BlueBuds stone dead.

The first indication that something was wrong would be turning up at the gym to find the BlueBuds would not switch on. This despite having fully charged them. I’d return home assuming the charge hadn’t worked and would plug them in using the USB cable. On connecting the BlueBuds to the PC the indicator light would immediately turn green suggesting they were fully charged. I’d leave them on to charge ‘just in case’ but they still would not switch on. End of story. Dead BlueBuds.

The cause of the failure is a mystery but you have to suspect they are not as sweat proof as Jaybird would have us believe. I do wonder if the over ear fitting is part of the problem because it puts the small plastic control unit that holds the buttons in contact with your head.

Support and Returns

Jaybird support was quite good overall with prompt responses to contact made using the support page on their website. The most irritating thing was being asked to return the BlueBuds to the USA. I’m in the UK so I really didn’t want the added expense. Jaybirds alternative is for you to send 2 photographs to Jaybird: one with the headphones intact and the other with the wire cut. You also have to include a piece of paper in each photo showing your signature and the date.

Really?

I mean, really?

Good job Jaybird on making me feel like you think I’m trying to con you out of a new pair of BlueBuds. Definitely not the kind of customer experience I appreciate.

Conclusion

A great idea and so close to being an excellent product. Wearability, usability and sound quality were great. The only issue was the build quality. The BlueBuds are clearly not up to the wear and tear of gym use and the most likely culprit is sweat.

Having had 2 pairs fail on me in exactly the same way I can only suggest you avoid the Jaybird BlueBuds X if you intend to use them when training. At £123.00 a pop they are far too expensive to think of as a disposable product.

Update 10/06/2014

After my second pair of BlueBuds failed I contacted Jaybird again for a replacement. This is the response I got:

XXXX XXXXX (Jaybird)
Jun 9, 2:56 PM
Hi,
Try this first,
Firmly but quickly press the power button 8 times and then hold for 5 seconds. Repeat 2 times.
When finished, plug the headset into the charger and tell me what you see.
Most of the time if the headset turns RED it will charge and function normally again, Make sure that if the light is red to fully charge the unit again.
Try holding the power button down for 10 seconds also some times it takes longer to turn them on.
let us know and if this does not work and I would be happy to help with an exchange.
My best,
XXXX

Now I was stupid enough to actually try this and guess what? No change. Back to Jaybird.

Incidentally, I was told when the last pair failed that pressing and holding the power button for 10 seconds does a factory reset.

Update 12/06/2015

OK, I’m getting pretty fed up with Jaybird now. For some reason I can’t get their support person to understand that the BlueBuds were bought online and that there’s no physical receipt. He really wants a ‘picture’.

Frankly I’m done. They don’t work anyway.

The Problem

We use CruiseControl.Net (CCNet) for continuous integration and also for automated deployment of applications. The deployment processes usually include compiling an application, configuring it appropriately for a target environment (e.g. test, production, etc.), creating a deployment package such as a Zip archive, and then copying the package to the appropriate server(s) where it is installed.

However, we suddenly started getting failures when running these deployment builds. After checking the CCNet build logs we could see errors such as “Could not find a part of the path \\servername\deploymentfolder”.

Initial checks on the build server showed that the Universal Naming Convention (UNC) paths were actually valid. So what was going on?

The Solution

To find out what was going on I used Process Monitor to see if there were issues accessing the UNC paths.

Firstly, I grabbed the latest version of Process Monitor from Microsoft SysInternals. It’s free and does not need installation – it runs as a single executable. Then I copied Process Monitor (procmon.exe) to the machine in question and ran it. Once it has opened I did the following:

1. Disabled event capture by clicking the magnifying glass icon so it has the red ‘X’ overlay.
2. Clicked the eraser icon to clear all existing captured events.
3. Made sure Process Monitor was only going to capture file system activity by only selecting the filing cabinet icon.

Then I needed to add a filter so I only saw events relating to the file/folder I was interested in:

1. Clicked the filter icon (the Filter > Filter… menu option does the same thing).
2. Once the Process Monitor Filter dialog opened, clicked the Reset button.
3. Using the drop-down menus etc. created a filter that said “Path begins with \\servername\deploymentfolder then include”.
4. Clicked the Add button to add the new filter.

Finally I clicked the magnifying glass icon again to start event capture and forced one of the failing builds to run. Once the build completed I stopped capturing events again. This was the result:

So I could see that NAnt had been unable to copy the deployment file to the server because of a login failure. By double-clicking on an entry in the event list I could see more details about the issue including which account was being used.

Further digging identified the cause of the issue being related to the account being used to run the CCNet service and was easy to correct.

Step 8 - Subscription cancellation (huzzah!)

Step 9 - Twitter power

Step 1 – Do some checks

Step 2 – Check the email

 

Step 3 – Find my order

Step 4 – Manage subscription (not)

Step 5 – Contact support

Step 6 – eHow makes a suggestion

Step 7 – The mystery page

 

Step 8 – Email customer support directly